OLDaily

[link: 10 Hits] Albert Ip commentss on my discussion with George Siemens on subjectivity and objectivity. I'll leave my commentary until he finishes his piece, but I will observe at this juncture that his use of words like 'information' and 'knowledge' is very different from mine - dramatically different. This, for example: "I will use the word 'information' to represent everything external to me." This is not remotely how I would define 'information' - my usage is more similar, I think, to writers like Dretske (Knowledge and the Flow of Information). [Tags: Information] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

[link: 5 Hits] Tom Hoffman writes that "expecting bloggers to change things quickly is a little unrealistic" and Christian Long observes, "I'm not sure when the rule was laid down that any blogging -- whether it be about education or technology or some wonderful hybrid or about collectors of guinea pigs or whatever your bag of raisins -- that it had to change the world on any level." In this article, Chris Lehmann takes the view that Hoffman and Long are right to recommend patience. "We are changing things. Slowly... incrementally... one school... one classroom... one district at a time. And we are doing it at a time when the overarching edu-political landscape isn't exactly welcoming the kinds of reforms many of us are writing about and working to implement. And yet, we're doing it anyway." [Tags: Online Learning, Web Logs, Schools] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

[link: 2 Hits] When I read about resistance to technological change, I frequently see it couched in terms of fear, as in this article. I think that's a myth - the image of people, including teachers, cowering from growth and development because they're afraid of change doesn't sit well with me, and doesn't reflect the experiences I've had talking with them. To say people are afraid to change, it seems to me, is really to say that you can't really explain the advantages of the change you're proposing, and so it's somehow their fault. It isn't, you know. [Tags: Experience] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

[link: Hits] Some commentary and correction regarding my observations about MIT's OpenCourseWare contained in my recent paper on sustainable open educational resources. Some good observations, too: "no project can really sustain the costs of producing 'reusable' materials, even assuming they could determine what that meant... So the path to sustainable projects seems to lie in getting as many materials onto the web in as close a state to that of their original use as is possible." [Tags: Project Based Learning] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

[link: 1 Hits] Just for the record, I will not be paying money to send out OLDaily every day (who could afford it?) - I think we need to keep in mind the impact of such proposals on free and non-commercial content, such as this newsletter, to ask ourselves very closely, what is the real intent of a strategy that makes free newsletters like mine impossible to deliver? [Tags: Newsletters, Yahoo!] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

[link: Hits] I remember Derrick de Kerckhove talking about urban screens - "interactive, dynamic digital information displays in urban environments" - a few years ago at a conference in Edmonton. It was one of those gee-whiz presedntations full of hope but with no discernable impact. But I'm not surprised to see the concept emerge again; it's too alluring to let go. But I think urban screens should be more personal. I have proposed repeatedly that we try something like that at NRC - ambient wall-screens connecting offices between cities (after all, we're on CA*Net 4, so we have the bandwidth). Because the idea is to connect people, not cities (and certainly not propaganda). Much more on urban screens in this month's issue of First Monday. [Tags: Bandwidth, Marketing, Games and Gaming] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

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I want and visualize and aspire toward a system of society and learning where each person is able to rise to his or her fullest potential without social or financial encumberance, where they may express themselves fully and without reservation through art, writing, athletics, invention, or even through their avocations or lifestyle.

Where they are able to form networks of meaningful and rewarding relationships with their peers,
with people who share the same interests or hobbies, the same political or religious affiliations - or different
interests or affiliations, as the case may be.

This to me is a society where knowledge and learning are public goods, freely created and shared,
not hoarded or withheld in order to extract wealth or influence.

This is what I aspire toward, this is what I work toward. - Stephen Downes